Bloodbrothers

by Richard Price

  This comment redoubled the laughter. Jimmy O'Day fell to the floor, curled up on his side, tears of laughter threatening him with a coronary.

  Stony sensed the worst was over. Tommy grabbed him and kissed him on the side of his head.

  "I don't get it."

  One by one, the electricians shook his hand, welcoming him into the clique. Stony smiled uneasily, still trying to put two and two together. As they filed back to work, laughing and eating their Danishes or sandwiches, Stony felt like a jerk for not seeing what the hell was so goddamn funny.

  At eleven o'clock the guys sent Stony back to the Greek's with lunch orders. At eleven forty-five, Tommy, Jimmy O'Day, Eddie and Vinny came down, picked up their lunches from Stony, collected their thermos bottles from the shanty, walked off the site and sat on the grass island dividing traffic on the Henry Hudson Parkway.

  "Aw Christ!" Vinny stared in disgust at his open thermos. "Look at this." He pulled out two chunks of glass that had been floating on top of the coffee. "Bastad!" He flung the broken thermos behind him. It rolled off the grass and into traffic.

  "Hey, shithead!" Tommy watched the thermos roll slowly across the band of highway. They all shifted to see if the red plaid cylinder would make it. A white Ford zoomed right over it—the tires missing by six inches. "Hey!" they all shouted, ducking and shielding their faces with their arms. When the Ford passed they all laughed. A burgundy VW tore past, just missing the thermos. Again they ducked. A wood-paneled station wagon, trailing the VW, hit the thermos dead center. There was a loud pop and a crunch. The force of the crush spurt the coffee out of its container like a gigantic brown gob of spit, spraying them all. Vinny jumped up and threw his apple at the flying station wagon. Everybody was laughing and taking swipes at the coffee on their shirts and in their hair.

  "Vinny, you're a real jibone, you know that?" Jimmy O'Day brushed coffee off the knees of his khaki chinos.

  Eddie got up, waited for a lull in the traffic and sprinted to pick up the mangled thermos. "Look at that." He dropped it on the grass. It was crushed flat as cardboard. Jimmy O'Day picked it up with two fingers. Tiny grains of glass trickled out of what was left of the mouth.

  "Hey, Vinny, that should be your head, you know that? We coulda gotten a piece a glass in our eyes." Jimmy O'Day sprayed egg salad as he talked.

  "I dropped it this mornin' down a stairs. I thought maybe if I don't open it an' forget about it it won't be broken at lunch-time."

  "It should be your head."

  "I got enough problems." Vinny scarfed down half a salami and prosciutto sandwich. He reached for Jimmy O'Day's thermos. Jimmy O'Day snatched the thermos protectively.

  "Drink piss, ya bastad!"

  Vinny smiled, nodding in Jimmy O'Day's direction. "You believe this green nigger?"

  Jimmy O'Day didn't respond, licking the traces of egg salad from his fingertips.

  "Here." Tommy tossed a half-pint orange wax carton into Vinny's lap.

  "Thanks." Vinny shook it up, peeled back the lip and chugged half the contents. "Feh!" He spit in the grass.

  "Whassamattah!" Tommy sat up indignantly.

  Vinny grimaced, closed the mouth of the container and tossed it back to Tommy.

  "What the fuck's with you. That's good orange juice." Tommy was insulted.

  "That's orange drink," Vinny said wearily.

  "Bullshit!"

  "Tommy, can you read?"

  "Yeah, I can read."

  "Well, read the fuckin' label then."

  "Sunkist orange ... drink. So big fuckin' deal. What's the goddamn difference? It taste orange, don't it?"

  "Tommy, you know how they make orange drink? They take some boonie after he works all day at Nedick's and they make him take a bath. When he gets out they put the water into them little orange things an' they sell it to assholes like you."

  "Hor'shit! It tastes better than that Tropicana garbage."

  "Hey!" Vinny raised a finger as case in point. "Now, Tropicana, that's real orange juice. That's the best. If you don't like Tropicana then you don't like real orange juice."

  "Bullshit, I don't like real orange juice! Who the fuck are you to tell me I don't like real orange juice!" Tommy turned to Stony sitting cross-legged, quietly eating. "You just gonna sit there an' let this fuckface insult your father?"

  Everybody laughed. Stony wondered what the fuck he was doing sitting in the grass in the middle of a highway with a half a dozen grown men in T-shirts, earning a hundred grand a year among them. He shrugged, wiped a dab of egg salad from his mouth. "Hey, Vinny, don't tell my father he don't like real orange juice."

  ***

  "So?" Tommy moved the car out onto the Henry Hudson Parkway.

  "So what?" Stony rolled down the window.

  "So how'd it go today? Roll up the window." Tommy flipped on the air conditioner. The car filled with a mildly musty smell.

  "It was all right."

  "You pissed about this morning?"

  "Nah." Stony put his foot up against the glove compartment.

  "You looked like you were gonna have a heart attack." Tommy laughed, slapping Stony's leg off the dash.

  Stony sighed. "I'll tell you, it wasn't as bad as I thought."

  "Good!" Tommy said with a slightly mocking tone.

  "Hey, you know when they sent me out in the truck for beer? I was about a mile away from the building. I look up, I can see all you guys playin' cards on the deck. What would happen if Artie caught you?"

  "Never happen," Tommy shook his head, "never happen."

  "Why not?"

  "Could you see Artie La Russo climbin' twenny-four flights a stairs? That guy hasn't made it to the deck of a buildin' in ten years."

  "You guys, you send me out for breakfast, you wait until I get back, you eat, then you don't work for half an hour after."

  "We gotta digest."

  "You send me out for lunch, same thing, you send me out for beer, same thing. I can't figure out how anything gets done."

  "The work gets done," Tommy answered calmly.

  "I saw Jimmy O'Day got a chaise longue up there on the deck." Stony laughed.

  "I'm gonna bring me one up there next week too." Tommy turned off the highway onto Mosholu Parkway. "Stony, how much kickback you get from the Greek's today?"

  Stony dug into his pocket, took out some bills and change. "Six and a half."

  "You tell that greaseball if he don't give you ten tomorrow you'll start goin' to the supermarket instead. He gave you free lunch at least?"

  "Yeah, I got a veal Parmigian to go."

  "You tell him tomorrow, ten bucks or you go to Daitch."

  "You really bringin' in a chaise longue?"

  "Look." Tommy sighed and turned to Stony. "Lemme explain somethin' to you. Every one of those guys there are trained, experienced journeyman electricians. Me, Jimmy O'Day and Eddie are master electricians. We're the best there is in this whole goddamn field and Artie and everybody else knows it. O.K., we screw off a little, we screw off a little. We ain't foolin' anybody. You don't think Artie knows we play cards? You know why he don't bitch? You know why his boss don't bitch? 'Cause they know we're the best an' when we work, we work, an' they know they can count on us. We don't make mistakes that's gonna cost them a lotta time an' money. So, if we wanna jerk off an extra hour?" Tommy shrugged. "See, you may think those guys are clowns, and you may think those guys get too much money for what they do, but let me tell you somethin', no matter how those guys come off like gavons at lunchtime, they are professional, skilled electricians." Tommy winked at Stony. "This field's been good to me. There's never been nothin' you, your mother or your brother ever needed or wanted that I couldn't give like that." Tommy snapped his fingers. "You been eatin' meat every night a your life. You went to a private school, you got your own car."

  "I paid for the car," Stony interrupted.

  "Who pays the insurance? Look, all I'm tryin' to say to you, Stony, is that it's a good field, it's always done all right by me
, it keeps me and my own from ever knowin' what hungry means. And it could do the same for you, Stony, it could do the same for you."

  22

  ON TUESDAY, Tommy got transferred downtown to another site for the day. After work he drove to Banion's.

  "I heard the weirdest thing today." Tommy leaned over the bar talking to Banion. "I'm workin' down on Orchard Street today on that new public school, you know. I'm walkin' on Second Avenue goin' over to Katz's Deli for some lunch, an' I see this kid comin' towards me. Couldn't a been more'n seven, a Puerto Rican kid, really little. Anyways, he's walkin' by himself an' he got a slice a pizza in his hands. He comes up to me an' he's frownin, you know. He looks up and he says, 'This pizza taste like puh-sy,' just like that, an' he keeps walkin'."

  Banion chuckled and shook his head.

  "I swear I almost dropped dead laughin'. Hey, Chubby!"

  Chubby sat down next to Tommy, nodding hello to Banion. "Tom, len' me twenny?"

  "For what?" Tommy chewed on an ice cube and flicked his mustache with a pinky.

  "For what?" Chubby mimicked.

  "It's six o'clock! Whatta you, a animal?"

  "My cock don't wear a watch. See ya later." He took the twenty, pinched Tommy's cheek and left the bar.

  "What a lover." Tommy fiddled with his mustache.

  "I wouldn't want him on top a me," said Banion.

  "Don't let his size fool you, the man knows what he's doin'. I bet you he could outbang this whole bar."

  "I still wouldn't want him on top a me."

  "Well, then you don't know what you're missing. The dude's a top stickman. Do you know why he's so good? I been in on a lotta three- an' four-way deals with Chub, so I know what I'm talkin' about. He's good 'cause he loves to fuck. He don't get hung up on that whole 'Was it good for you? Didja come?' number. He just goes right in there. I never seen a guy so much in love with pussy as Chubby. You gotta see him in action to believe it. I mean he loves the way it smells, the way it tastes, the way it feels. He's the only guy I know who can sing and scarf pussy at the same time."

  "Hmpf, you'd never know it." Banion was fuming. Sex was such a major production for him because of his crippled legs. His wife had to get on top of him and do all the work or it was no go. The agony of his helplessness was such that at forty-six he had just about lost interest in screwing altogether.

  "Oh, an' if you think Chubby's somethin' now, you shoulda seen him thirty years ago. Jesus Christ, he was built like a brick shithouse, like a fuckin' rock. He got an offer to play pro ball when he was eighteen ... he ever tell you about that?"

  "Really?" Banion started fidgeting.

  "Oh yeah. Nineteen forty-four Chubby was the triple crown champ at James Monroe, hits, homers an' RBIs. You know who he looked like? You remember that guy used to play for the Reds, Ted Kluszewski? You know, that guy with arms like tree trunks? He useta play with his sleeves cut off to his shoulders."

  "Yeah. Yeah, I remember."

  "Chubby looked just like him. In-fuckin'-credible. He was the most popular guy at Monroe. I remember I was a sophomore when he was a senior. I used to get laid by sayin' to girls, 'If you put out for me I'll put in a good word for you with my brother.'" Tommy laughed.

  "What happened with the pros?" Banion didn't want to know but felt compelled to ask.

  "That was the funniest thing. I don't mean funny ha-ha; it was more tragic than that ... Chubby got an offer to try out with the Browns, that's when they had guys like One-Arm Pete Grey an' such. With the war goin' on they were really hard up for talent. So Chubby's supposed to go out to St. Louis on a Sunday. That Saturday night we had a party, Banion, the likes a which I never been to since. The whole team, all twenty guys, we went down to Union Square and rented out an entire whorehouse for two hundred bucks, the pussy, the booze, the this, the that, in-fucking-credible. Fifteen guys lost their cherries that night, guys runnin' aroun' 14th Street in the nude, puking, coming, screaming. It was the most memorable night a my life, Banion."

  "So what happened with..."

  "So what happened, so what happened is Chubby got drunk and he's trying to bang this chick while standing at the head of this long flight a stairs an' he loses his balance. She got a concussion an' he busted his fuckin' leg. Spent the next three weeks in the hospital."

  "Couldn't he a tried out after his leg healed?"

  "You know, that's one thing I could never figure out. I remember the Browns scout Buzzy Baker visitin' Chubby in the hospital an' tellin' him to call when his leg healed. Chubby never did. Always said, 'I'll call 'im tomorrah.' Then one day about six months later he joined the merchant marine an' shipped out to Surinam an' that was that. He came back a few years later an' started workin' with our old man as an electrician. To this day, I don't know what the fuck went on in his head." Tommy sighed. "Whatever, it's ancient history, right?"

  Banion wanted to tell Tommy about playing forward for the All-Hallows High School basketball team. That his three-year career point total was the highest in All-Hallows history. That it took fifteen years and a six-eight nigger who later went pro to break his record. But it all seemed so distant and dim, it made him feel so angry to think about it.

  "Yeah, ancient history." Banion whirred down the line. Tommy noticed somebody had stenciled "Ironsides" on the back of Banion's new wheelchair.

  Tommy sat there thinking about Chubby. He had always felt that he knew Chubby inside and out, but every once in a while something would come up, like Chubby not going to St. Louis, like Chubby not having another kid, that would throw Tommy for a loop and a half.

  Chubby cruised Eighth Avenue in the Forties, strolling down the block, occasionally stopping in porn book shops as a warm-up. It seemed to him most of the hookers were black, about six-foot-two, skinny, dressed in dirty hot pants and Afro wigs. Bad news. The street was steaming. He felt covered with a thin film of sludge and a slight wheeze crept into his lungs. He walked down from 48th Street to 40th by the Greyhound terminal, crossed the street and walked back up to 50th Street. Pimples and platform shoes. He was about to leave and check out the Carnegie Hall area when he saw her, coming out of a Blimpie's. Chinese. Bangs. Nineteen.

  As they climbed the narrow stairs. Chubby's wheeze got worse. She was half a flight ahead of him. Aloof. Swinging her ass like a censer. She looked so much like Sooky Chubby had the shakes.

  "Hot! Hot! Hot!" She minced over to the window across the small room, her hand waving in front of her tits like a fan. Chubby sat heavily on the corner of the narrow bed, trying to catch his breath. As she pushed up the window, her short white backless fishnet dress hitched halfway up her ass. Chubby smiled. "That's better!" She turned to Chubby, reached behind her neck to untie the strap holding up her dress and in an instant she was nude. Her dark brown nipples stood out like pencil erasers.

  She patted the bed. "Come on. Lay down!" Cheery and efficient as a nurse.

  Chubby stood up and undressed, sitting back down to pull off his pants. "What's your name, darlin'?"

  "Tiny."

  "Tiny, hah? You from Hong Kong?"

  "California."

  "California, hah? It's nice out there."

  "Come on, big boy, lay down."

  Chubby crawled across the bed and collapsed on his back. She sat by his side and took a foil-wrapped condom from her pocketbook. Then she stroked his fat, semihard cock gently but mechanically. Chubby lay with one hand behind his head and reached out to touch her nipples. He was having a tough time getting a hard-on. The pain in his lungs, the work he had to do to keep breathing, distracted him to the point of mortal fear. He didn't want sex. He wanted an iron lung. Tiny frowned at him. "What's the story?"

  Chubby winked. Never say die. Finally he was hard enough for her to slip on the rubber.

  "You want me to wear this?" She held up her hand displaying a wedding ring.

  Chubby shrugged. "I'll tell you what, though, you into playin' make-believe? For the next twenny minutes your name's Sooky."

  She no
dded. "Sooky it is."

  Chubby moved to get on top of her, but she stopped him. "I'll be on top, you're a pretty big guy."

  Chubby laid her down on the clammy sheets and arched his body over her. "Never heard no complaints before."

  She brought up her knees under his chest and guided him in. A band of pain encircled his chest and the room filled with the sound of his labored breath. She scratched her nose and looked off to the side. Chubby stopped moving and tried to gulp in air. He lost his hard-on.

  "C'mon, baby, I don't got all day," she bitched.

  Chubby fell off her and clutched his chest. "Can't breathe!"

  She sat up in alarm. "You gettin' a heart attack? Don't get no heart attack on me!"

  Chubby didn't answer, stroking his chest, rolling his head in pain.

  "Shit!" She jumped up and quickly pulled on her dress. "Don't get no heart attack on me! I get all the fuckin' basket cases!" She ran from the room, slamming the door.

  Chubby struggled to a sitting position on the edge of the bed, the rubber pinching the skin on his shriveled dick. He was too weak and dizzy to stand up.

  The door exploded inward and two tall spades—one dressed in a yellow three-piece suit with a matching gangster lean, the other in a red and black two-piece with alligator platforms—ran in followed by Tiny.

  "Oh shit! He a big mothafucka!"

  The taller of the two men glared at Tiny, who cowered behind the door. "He pay you?"

  She nodded yes. They hoisted Chubby by the armpits.

  "Pull on his fuckin' pants!"

  The one in the red and black suit grunted from the strain of Chubby's weight. Tiny slipped Chubby's pants over his condomed dick and buckled his belt. They let him drop on the bed.

  "Hey, whadya... whadya doin'?" Chubby gasped weakly.

  "Like I don't get enough mothafuckin' trouble," the one in yellow bitched. "Put on his fuckin' shoes!"

  Tiny hastily obliged. They pulled Chubby up on his feet again and dragged him out of the room, Chubby's head rolling back, his tongue hanging out of his head. They cursed as they slowly carried him down the steep flight of stairs into the street, propping him up on the hood of a car, his head almost hanging to his knees. The spade in red threw Chubby's lime green sport shirt at him. Then they all split, the pimp in yellow screaming at Tiny. Blindly Chubby slapped the back of his pants for his wallet. It was still there. Staggering to his feet he clutched his shirt and made it to the traffic side of the car to hail a cab like a drunk. A police car stopped, two cops jumped out.